Research and the Theoretical Field - Pauldowling.me

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write and probably impossible to read. In the absence of a truly formal
language, such as those used in mathematics or programming, I think I have
to compromise. So I lay out my store, so to speak, and then I stock it with
items that are comprehensible to my audience. The second answer is in fact
precisely to do with marketing. I have indicated that I am not inclined to the
view that a faith in an unknowable reality has any implications for my work.
However, I have to admit that I am probably in the minority, here. So, I make
use of the language of reality and causation etc in order to avoid alienating
audiences who might find my theoretical constructions and analyses of some
use. Since I detach ontology from method, this has no implications for my own
interpretation or use of the theory that I generate.
As to the first question, ‘why research methods etc’ I have generally found
that dialogue is more productive than monologue in respect of generating new
ideas—and that’s what I’m interested in. So an important part of my approach
is dialogic. However, dialogue can really only take place between two or more
positions that each have some distinctiveness. So another part of my
approach is concerned with establishing a degree of coherence and
consistency in the various contributors to the dialogue. In approaching this, I
begin from where both my audience and myself are located, in the discourses
of educational research. There are ready at hand tools that facilitate
coherence and consistency in theory and in methodology. In general, then,
the kind of dialogue that I engage in is one between theory and
methodology—the theoretical field—and the empirical field. Both must be
allowed to speak their specificity if the dialogue is to be productive. But if
either becomes unduly coherent and consistent, too sclerotic, then it can do
no more than necrotise the other; both must have sufficient closure to
generate a voice and sufficient openness to be able to hear; this was also my
point in my introduction to Chapter 6.
You may note that there is a strong authorial voice in these paragraphs (lots
of emphasis on the ‘I’) and, indeed, in most of the introductions in this module.
I think that this is generally appropriate and quite widely preferred in writing on
and about educational research. However, in this particular chapter
introduction it is especially relevant. The chapter is about what I have referred
to as general approaches, following Michael Crotty (1998). I have already
mentioned a number of categories that might be considered as general
approaches, starting with the references to Basil Bernstein. Although his
corpus is very wide ranging indeed, there is a clear coherence to it, so that it
is meaningful to talk about a ‘Bernsteinian’ approach to research; you can
follow up examples of Bernsteinian research in Moore et al (2006). There are
other general approaches that are associated with other names in educational
studies, Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Piaget are two examples. The names of
other general approaches signal both their initial inspiration and that they
have moved on, neo-Vygotskian, neo-Marxist, and so forth. Yet other
approaches do not include a name in their labels, whether or not they are
associated with a single originator, critical discourse analysis (Fairclough is an
important figure, but there are others), personal construct theory (George
Kelly, 1955), and so on; critical realism might be described as a general
approach in philosophy, though, in my view, it wouldn’t be appropriate to refer
RESEARCH & THE THEORETICAL FIELD